Crush
You're in a car with a beautiful boy, and he won't tell you that he loves you, but he loves you. And you feel like you've done something terrible, like robbed a liquor store, or swallowed pills, or shoveled yourself a grave in the dirt, and you're tired. You're in a car with a beautiful boy, and you're trying not to tell him that you love him, and you're trying to choke down the feeling, and you're trembling, but he reaches over and he touches you, like a prayer for which no words exist, and you feel your heart taking root in your body, like you've discovered something you don't even have a name for.
From the archives
·
2011
The Pale King
'My shit story. Hide-and-seek, gang of neighbourhood kids, twilight. I'm running for home base and trip over decorative logs somebody bordered his driveway with and went flying and put my hands out to like shield the impact and what do you suppose happens.'
'No.'
'Yes. Both hands first into a big new yellow steamer. Which I can still almost smell.'
'Jesus not even on the shoes but the hands. The personal skin.'
'You bet. I have maybe a dozen vivid, seared-in memories of early childhood, this is one of them. The feeling, the color, the dispersal, the rising smell. I howled, screamed, and everyone of course comes running, and as soon as they see it they're screaming and 180ing and running from me, and I'm both crying and roaring like some kind of horrible shit-monster and chasing after them, horrified and repulsed but also somehow underneath it all glorious in my role as monster, with the ability to make them all scream in terror and run for home where everbody's porch lights are just starting to come on and the little fake lamps by their driveways are on automatic timers; it's that time of day.'
Read more of this excerpt...
The Pale King
'My shit story. Hide-and-seek, gang of neighbourhood kids, twilight. I'm running for home base and trip over decorative logs somebody bordered his driveway with and went flying and put my hands out to like shield the impact and what do you suppose happens.'
'No.'
'Yes. Both hands first into a big new yellow steamer. Which I can still almost smell.'
'Jesus not even on the shoes but the hands. The personal skin.'
'You bet. I have maybe a dozen vivid, seared-in memories of early childhood, this is one of them. The feeling, the color, the dispersal, the rising smell. I howled, screamed, and everyone of course comes running, and as soon as they see it they're screaming and 180ing and running from me, and I'm both crying and roaring like some kind of horrible shit-monster and chasing after them, horrified and repulsed but also somehow underneath it all glorious in my role as monster, with the ability to make them all scream in terror and run for home where everbody's porch lights are just starting to come on and the little fake lamps by their driveways are on automatic timers; it's that time of day.'
Read more of this excerpt...
WORDS TO LIVE BY
“There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind.”
Catch 22 · Joseph Heller · 1961
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